Finding more of your best customers

So you’ve got an exciting new business and you have got great customers. Chances are, some are better than other; whether they spend more in store, or online, have greater ongoing needs, or much higher overall lifetime value. The best way forward, in terms of business growth and maximising your gains, is to get more of your most desirable customers.

Targeted acquisition

First, you need to be able to identify them. Look at the data you have currently, at point of sale or whatever you have access to, and start drilling down on the similarities and characteristics of these people – we’ll call them the ‘A’s. If in doubt, many professional marketers can help you to isolate who your high profit customers are and build a profile of them that you can use to direct your marketing activity.

Once you’ve got an idea of who those ‘A’s are, it’s time to find more of them. Often though, that’s where the confusion comes in as there are now so many ways to reach people… So, where does one start? Again, this is where a professional comes in. Not only can they really drill down on the “who”, but they can tap into the multiple channels at their fingertips – across print, online media and direct mail to reach the exact type of people that you want more of, the ‘A’s.

How the experts can do this can seem like a bit of a ‘dark art’, but these data guys have access to an incredible wealth of information that they can turn into insight and use to find people based on gender, age, income, career type, geographic location, spending habits – you name it!

New customer acquisition undoubtedly carries some form of price tag, but it’s an investment. Maximising the return that you get on that investment is a matter of keeping your activity as targeted and focused as possible.

Lifetime value and skillful retention

Getting new customers (and the right kind of customers) in the door is the first challenge, but don’t sit back when they all arrive and think that your job is now done and the growth you are gunning for has been achieved.

Next you need to make sure that you’re meeting all of their needs, both the ones you have already been catering to and perhaps additional ways that you could add value. If you’re listening to their needs, instead of just focusing on the outward, one-way sharing of your messages, opportunities for providing better (more valuable) services are likely to appear. This will help you maximise the lifetime value of your customers.

The last word, though, goes to retention… “There’s no point filling the bath tub while the plug is out” as the old adage goes. This applies in business also, as we need to make sure that we are keeping our existing customers happy, so that they keep doing business with us. The danger here is that we focus so single-mindedly on new business, that we end up churning new customers through our business and out the other side.

Our advice: Ones you’ve got them, keep doing what you do well and exceed their expectations. If you need some help drilling down on the best people to target, and how to get them, give us a call.

[Working with Intelligent Ink was] such an easy process. I spent hours pulling my hair out trying to write our website content and Verity took the whole job off my hands and did an amazing job. The feel of our business and company’s direction was picked up from the first meeting. I wish I found you earlier!